Distress and Decay
by Dreaming-Of-A-Nightmare
Summary: Season 2&3 AU in which Burt Hummel succumbs to his comatose state, Kurt is caving in on himself, his outburst in the locker room with Karofsky becomes more personal, a number is shared instead of a one-sided kiss, and no one is Kurt's friend except his initial enemy. But things can only get progressively worse from here, because a happy ending doesn't seem to be in Kurt's cards.
1. What happened to us all?

**A/N: I dedicate this fanfic to LunarGuardian27. **

**Takes place around season 2, but altered quite a bit.**

* * *

No one ever sees these sorts of things coming.

One moment, his father is fine. He's running the shop, he's his usual campy, quirky self…

And the next, he's collapsed and people are rushing into Kurt's classroom and telling him that his father has had a heart attack, fallen into a coma, and isn't seeming to wake up anytime soon.

And Kurt's world, the world he has known for seventeen years, the world he has clung to and cherished and been supported by for his entire life is suddenly pulled roughly apart by fate's icy-cold, cruel claws.

XXX

Weeks pass.

Finn grows distant; he at first tried to say things like, "It's gonna be okay," and "I know how you feel; he's been like my dad, too," and so on, but Kurt has come to resent his dopey stepbrother-to-be more and more, and Finn has been getting offended and angry, and regressing back to how he used to be.

Kurt doesn't care. He doesn't need Finn anyway; Finn is a hypocrite and a dumb jock who only cares about being on top and having the girl he wants when he wants her.

XXX

Quinn and Mercedes try to urge him to find a foothold in religion; he turns them away. Faith won't do him any good; he's realistic. He knows that his father is most likely going to die, and there is nothing he can do about it, because no amount of praying with make the coma ease up and his father's eyes open.

Mike and Tina don't know what to do. Tina used to be close to him, but now their friend circles have shifted, and they are too awkward to talk to one another about things with more depth than what last night's geometry homework was.

Artie and Puck are quickly becoming friends, but their combined efforts to cheer Kurt up only make him feel like they are mocking his pain. So he ignores them.

The new boy, Sam, is clueless, but polite. Kurt doesn't kind him as much. Still, he isn't looking for Sam's pity.

Santana simply doesn't give a rat's ass. And Brittany is lost on the whole matter, and thinks that her fingers stroking his scalp and her arms around him are comfort enough. It's not. He pushes her away, and eventually, Brittany stops trying.

And after a couple weeks, the majority of the Glee club is too absorbed in their relationships problems to notice how sluggish and unexpressive Kurt has become.

Schuester is no help; Kurt has come to hate him, because the man is shallow and only cares about the little problems, not the big ones, and thinks that singing will cure all ails.

It won't.

Glee becomes more of a daily walk through mist than the highlight of his day like it used to be.

XXX

Carole can't stand the sight of Kurt; he reminds her too much of the man she loves who might never wake, or who might die at any given time, even with life support. She can't stand to have him in her home because she can't be near him without crying, and he can't legally live on his own in his own house.

So, left with nowhere to ho, Rachel offers a room.

He now lives with Rachel and her fathers, but he hates all of them. They are condescending in their pity, and Rachel is intolerable to live with, but they are the only ones sympathetic enough of his sexual orientation to house him.

So, slowly, Kurt curls in on himself like a leaf in a flame, and no one is the wiser.

XXX

He prefers the bullying to facing his own problems, actually. The harassment from Karofsky, Azimio, and the rest of the football team become a welcome distraction from Burt being in the hospital, a semi-permanent resident.

If he's tossed into a locker, he can focus more on the physical pain of the shock of metal against his shoulder blades than the ache in his chest. If he's slushied, he can focus more on the sugar soiling his acne care products and the ice prickling his pores than on the weight crushing down on his lungs. If he's called 'faggot,' he can focus on the raw anger of the derogatory term, rather than on the ever-increasing depth of the sinking pit in his stomach.

The nausea over his father's pallid face void of emotion, the guilt that he should have watched his father's cholesterol intake better, the headaches of hearing everyone's bullshit condolences is collectively rubbed away by the bullying. The bruises and ruined clothes are worth the escape from his inner turmoil.

So when Karofsky shoves him, Kurt's face contorts into a jagged smile, and he spits out, "Come on, big boy, give me another, because nothing you do can hurt me anymore."

And that's the first time Karofsky blinks and looks at him a little differently. And instead of shoving Kurt a second time, the jock walks away, glancing backward once or twice, too startled to say anything.

XXX

Blaine is a decent friend. He might be the only person who at least says nice things to Kurt that don't imply 'finding Jesus' or anything too overbearing. He sends cute texts of consolation, things that say, "Be brave, Kurt; your father will get through this, I know he will," and the like. Blaine is a long-distance friend, someone he only met once, someone he doesn't know too well, but he's sweet, and Kurt could do with a little sweetness, instead of the ignorance of his so-called Glee club friends.

Blaine is safe because he isn't in Kurt's everyday life, and he can't do anything. In some ways, this friendship-through-texting is better than the friendships Kurt has had for years. But he feels nothing for Blaine; the initial attraction and intrigue has melted away, and all that is left is a hollow sort of comfort.

XXX

One afternoon, the day following another visit during which Kurt sings softly to his father and holds his cool hand and listens to the steady beat of the heart rate monitor, Kurt receives the text, "Courage" from Blaine.

He smiles tightly, but not without a fraction of warmth, and that's when everything reaches a boiling point. Because Karofsky comes by and smacks Kurt's phone out of his hands and shoves him into locker, and the adrenaline in Kurt's veins is like steam in an engine, and he takes deep, dizzying breaths and his vision blurs.

And in the next moment, his feet are flying on the tile floor, and he doesn't know what he's doing; he only knows that he feels _hurt pain rage sorrow fight-not-flight, _and he races after the jock in a burst of _melding pot of grief _and it's all he can do to stay upright as he crashes through locker room doors.

XXX

Dave jerks against his gym locker and keeps his face carefully composed. He hadn't expected Fancy to follow him. He hasn't been understanding the shorter boy in general lately, come to think of it; he's been rather unpredictable, grinning and asking for more bullying when he would normally shoot back some fiery words that Dave doesn't understand, and normally he would wear brighter clothing, but lately he's been wearing a lot of dark colors, things that make him look paler than normal, and Dave doesn't understand why Hummel's normal friends haven't been hanging on his arm like they used to do.

His confusions are answered as soon as the singer open's his mouth, and Dave is forced to listen.

He screams at the jock, "What is your problem? What are you so insecure of that you feel the need to relentlessly pick on me, even during the few moments I feel a little bit better about myself? What, are you so homophobic that you think I will try to molest and convert you? Do you think all gays are just flimsy little weaklings that you can toss around like hackey-sacks? Well, if so, I've got news for you, pal: your fat head'a way of thinking is _way_ off base! I'm a normal human being just like you are; I have my tastes in people like anyone else, and that excludes a lot of people, and like most people, and I _can_ fight back."

Dave's eyes widen as Hummel gets closer and closer, his face flushed with heated anger and his eyes clouded with tears of deep-seated pain and unabashed fury. He tries to take a step tack, but his shoulder collides with his locker door and throbs dully as he grinds his teeth and tries not to look Hummel in the eye, and yet can't seem to turn away.

He spits Dave's surname out as he gets especially close and leaning up threateningly to lower his voice and utter, "And you picked the wrong time to mess with me, _Karofsky_, because my father is in a coma and he is probably going to _die_ soon and leave me _alone,_ and no one is going to care because they are all too wrapped up in their stupid love lives to see that _real _problems and pain are happening around them.

"So I really don't need your bullshit today, and I am _more_ than happy and willing to duke it out with you once and for all, right here, right now, since teachers and principals are useless and I would like to get knocked around a little." He glances down at Dave's clenched fists at his sides, half-raised by his waist. "So are you gonna hit me? Do it. _Hit me,_ I dare you_._ God, it would make my day if you hit me so hard that my lights went out, because let me tell you, that would be a fucking _relief._"

Dave is trembling now. He's never seen Kurt like this, never knew the smaller boy could behave like this. He's… really broken. He's shaking with adrenaline and openly weeping through his rage, and now he's putting up both hands and shoving Dave in the shoulders, pushing him back and back and back, until Dave falls against a wall.

Kurt is blindly beating his fists on Dave's chest, and it hurts, but not too much, because Kurt is too overwhelmed with more emotion than Dave thought possible for one human to hold to even fight properly.

"…Whoa. _Shit._ Hummel, come on, chill out for a second!"

"_Chill out? _You keep harassing me, and I am finally standing up for myself, and you want me to _chill out? _Touch luck!" and he hurls his words at Dave, along with a fist or two, which Dave catches and eases downward.

"I didn't know, okay? _Fuck._ I had no idea that your dad… God, that explains how weird you've been the past several weeks. Man, I can't even… Because if _that_ happened to _my _dad, I wouldn't be able to even…" he's choking on his own words, tripping over himself, because at first he was really snubbed – he wanted to deck Kurt one – but once Kurt started breaking down and pouring out all his grievances, how could he think about harming him? _How?_ How could he, when all he has ever wanted to do was get closer to Kurt and touch Kurt without anyone knowing the truth, the truth that Dave is actually gay, too, and likes him, but was so scared of it and so angered by it that he –

He severs his thoughts before they can finish. He gently (as gently as he can with Kurt still weakly bringing down his fist and sliding it down Dave's chest as he loses momentum) walks Kurt backward and sits him down on one of the changing benches in the center of the room's rows of lockers. He awkwardly removes his hands and watches as Kurt wipes his face and sniffles.

The jock worries his bottom lip and attempts to find somewhere to begin in all this mess. "Um… I didn't mean for it to get this far. And… and I know we're not, uh,_ friends_…"

"Not by any stretch of the imagination, no," Kurt snorts.

"No," he agrees, "But… uh, do you want to talk about this?"

The other gives pause and looks Karofsky in the face, finding it oddly honest, and murmurs wryly, "What, you're going to play therapist now? And maybe become my new best friend?"

Dave heaves a sigh. "Er, no. Look, I can't… I can't be seen with you or anything, but here, right now, we can talk. Shit, I won't even bully you anymore if you're under this much pressure. I don't do it 'cause I like seeing you hurt – well, I mean, I kind of do, because you really piss me off, being as out and proud as you are, but _Jesus, _no one should be bullied when their only parent is, like, in the hospital in a fucking _coma. _I'm not that heartless. That's just… _wrong_, if I bully you while that's happening. I have _some_ standards; I didn't harass Fabray when she was pregnant last year. So, like, I wouldn't have touched you at all these past few weeks if I'd known."

"No?" Kurt scoffs, disbelieving, but he looks up at Karofsky again, and he thinks he can see some honesty there.

Kurt's eyes are puffy and pink and his nose is flared and a little wet, but somehow, he's still as stunning as ever, and Dave has to look away.

Giving the jock another once-over, he nods. "Huh. I think I believe you. So far, you're the only person who's noticed, and who wants to talk about it. Everyone else just finds it 'too sad' and brushes me off. I hate it. I'm even starting to hate _them_."

"Hate is such a… _heavy_ word," Dave tries and fails to say with a slight wince and a rub at the back of his neck. "I don't think you're the sort who is, um, fully capable of hating someone entirely, right? You always seem so… I don't know, kind-hearted? You're actually the best person I know. You're not like everyone else around here."

"I'm not like that anymore," Kurt grumbles. "I hated you, too, you know. For so long, I just wanted to be rid of you. But you're just a dumb jock who goes along with what his friends do, aren't you? So I can't say I blame you for shoving me around and calling me names."

"Yeah. And, er, it's not like I've done anything worse than that. I was never there when the others have locked you in porta-potties or threw you in dumpsters or called your dad and told him his son is a fag, or anything like that."

Kurt almost smiles. His mouth twitches. "True. You're limited to slushies and shoves, but even then, you've only slushied me personally once. Otherwise, it's been my friends, not me. You're not as bad as the rest of them; you just want to be stay popular. I get it," he sighs. "But you still set me off today."

"Yeah, and, um, I kind of apologize for that. I had no clue, Hummel, really. I can't imagine what you're going through," Dave offers meekly.

Kurt smiles a bit. "At least you're honest. Everyone else keeps saying to me, 'Oh, Kurt, I know what you're going through. I know how it feels, I understand,' and so on. I makes me want to scream."

"Well, uh, you did get to scream at me, so hopefully that helped, right?" Dave offers, and Kurt looks at him oddly for a moment. Then he laughs. Actually laughs.

"Yeah, I guess it did, in a weird way." He sighs and dabs at his face again. It's no longer as pink or swollen as it was. "I never thought I would put these words in the same sentence, but… thank you, Karofsky. You somehow managed to lift some of the burden from my shoulders." And he looks up at him, and Dave's heart does a skipping sensation that makes his fingertips tingle.

"Um… good. Yeah, I'm glad. It's just weird, 'cause I know we're… um, well, bully and victim, but… I'll let up. And you can text me if your dad gets better, or even if he doesn't. You just shouldn't be alone in this. It's kind of messed up that your friends aren't there for you, and… actually really backwards that I want to be, but I do. Here –" and he fumbles in his gym bag for a pen. He finds a scrap sheet of homework and jots down his cell number and hands it to the fashionable boy. "There it is. Just… text me when you want to, and make sure you tell me it's you the first time. I'll answer; I always text back, and no one will care, since I text everyone and don't like to talk on the phone much. No one will even ask, so that's good for me, I guess. Sorry, I just… I'm going through my own stuff right now, and I can't have anyone know I'm befriending the resident gay kid."

"While offended, I can see your position, and I'll take you up on the offer, thanks," Kurt responds with more composure. He stands and dusts himself off and picks up his forgotten bag. "See you around, Karofsky."

"Yeah… see you 'round."


	2. Have we slept through it?

Kurt stops going to Glee club. He quits; maybe for the year, maybe for the remainder of high school; it depends. Mainly on them, partially on his father's recovery, if there is one. Whatever, he doesn't care. Nothing phases him anymore. It's all water under the bridge. He's outgrown them, moved past them. They are petty. And that's the last thing he wants in his life at the moment.

Schuester begs and pleads for Kurt to return, but it's only because he knows Kurt is one of their best voices. They will find someone else – maybe a Cheerio, maybe another jock – to fill his slot so they are able to have the required dozen members, so he could care less.

He just can't be around any of them right now, not when they are less supportive than his _bully, _for fuck's sake.

How he ever thought he could find solace or penetrating loyalty in any of them is a joke, and he was a fool.

XXX

When a comatose patient can breathe on their own, it is like they are deeply asleep, but will wake soon; that's what the nurse kindly explained to Kurt when all this began. But when they fall so deeply into their comatose state that their brain functions become like the living dead, and they must be put on life support, then they will probably never recover.

That is Kurt's understanding, anyhow. And today, he gets called into the hospital before school ends, and is told that they have moved his father to a life support ward, a tube down his throat to keep his lungs filling and deflating with pumped air.

Kurt turns and flees the building.

At home, he slams his bedroom door shut and folds up on himself, his knees to his chest and his arms around his legs, his forehead tucked into the crevasse between. His sobs are drowned out by loudly played _Wicked_ songs, but even the love of his favorite musical isn't enough to ease even the smallest fraction of pain.

Burt Hummel is the best father who has ever lived, in Kurt's opinion. He knew and accepted Kurt for being gay when Kurt was merely a child. He stood up for Kurt on more than one occasion. He loves Kurt more than anything. He would do anything for his son, and Kurt knows it.

So why, why is he being taken away? Why now, while Kurt is still a child and not ready for his parent to leave him, or for him to leave his parent? Why not later, years and years and years later, when Burt is at a ripe old age and is prepared to die because Kurt is well settled into his own life? Why not then instead of now? Why must fate be so cruel to rip his life with his father, and his father's life, from his fingertips?

He shudders and contemplates a few options.

None of them seem any less painful than the other.

XXX

He texts Karofsky, "My father stopped breathing on his own today. They're putting him on life support. I don't know if I want it. I don't know if he would want it. As much as I want to hold on, do you think I should let go? Would he want it that way? Not to leave me alone, but to be allowed to die as his body sees fit, and not as a machine does?"

XXX

Dave hears the ping in his pocket and turns away from his friends to 'use the bathroom,' but instead reads and re-reads Kurt's text and thinks of the best way to respond.

"I don't know," he replies after too many pauses from his thumbs on the slide-out keypad, "I don't want you to do anything you regret. You get the say in this, though; you're his next of kin since he isn't married, right? So just do what you feel is best."

XXX

"I don't know what's best," is Kurt's response. The typed words are like carvings on a tombstone.

Dave can't text back. He can't say anything more.

XXX

"They out my father on life support. Should I pull the plug? Would he have wanted that, do you think?" Kurt texts Blaine next, wanting a second opinion, and not wanting to speak to Rachel's fathers downstairs about it.

Blaine's answer comes much faster than Karofsky's. He mustn't have had to think about it as much, or maybe he types faster, or maybe he's not as distracted. Either way, the quick response unnerves Kurt a little.

"Oh, definitely not! He wouldn't want to leave you alone, I'm sure! Keep him on it, and one day, he'll wake up, I'm sure of it!"

Blaine isn't much more helpful. And he isn't making Kurt feel any better.

XXX

"Kurt, why don't you want to be in Glee club? I was hoping we'd still get that duet together…" Sam murmurs one morning, hovering near Kurt's locker when Kurt stops to switch out books for his next class.

"I'm sorry, Sam; it's nothing personal. I just don't want to be around their relationship troubles when I am struggling with my own problems, that's all," Kurt replies swiftly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to be late to French."

The blond looks defeated and concerned as Kurt marches off.

Dave watches from across the hall and huffs a sigh through his nose as he shots his locker door.

XXX

Blaine is with the Warblers on a bus to Sectionals when it happens.

A drunk driver swerves to the side and crashes into the bus, toppling it over. Three students are severely injured. The bus driver dies from a lamppost the bus slams into as it skids along the road. One student gets crushed under the slide of broken window and road, leaving a bloody streak on the pavement and a missing right side of the body.

The student casualty is Blaine. They have a closed-casket funeral because he's so torn up and missing an arm and a chunk of his hip.

Kurt doesn't attend, but he does send the Anderson family flowers.

He's lost another friend, and it figures, because right when he needs someone the most, they are taken from him, just like his father, just like Carole and Finn, and all for the stupidest reasons, like drunk drivers and heart attacks and selfish sorrow.

Sometimes, Kurt wonders if he has anyone left at all. Then he remembers his strange ally in Karofsky, and he laughs loudly and bitterly at his own life, because it really is one big joke the universe has bestowed to him. Maybe it's the price for being homosexual. Maybe it's just the price of life.

Sometimes, Kurt wonders what happened to the bright and talented young man he used to be. And then he remembers that he is from Lima, so he was never meant to go anywhere or do anything with that blazing "talent" anyhow.

And sometimes, Kurt just wants to disappear, anything that will make him forget all he's undergone.

XXX

After a month of debating with himself, Kurt resigns to walk into the hospital and demand they cut the life support.

He decides this because he doesn't want to prolong his father's suffering, if there is any. He doesn't want to deny his father any sort of afterlife, if there is one. And after the incident with Blaine, he thinks it will be best to sever his ties now to spare him further unexpected loss in the future. Cut his ties now, on his own terms, to spare him further torment later; seems logical.

But it's instead nothing short of agonizing.

XXX

A funeral is held five days after his father's life support is shut down.

Too many people to name attend. It's claustrophobic and demeaning; Kurt cares more than anyone. It's his father. But they look at him like they blame him, because he's the one who determined when the support was cut.

And it doesn't help, he supposes, that he is so obvious in the massive crowd.

Because Kurt wears solid white.

Everyone else is in black.

XXX

Karofsky is there, lingering at the edge of the trees outside, unsure if he should be at Burt Hummel's funeral. His only connection is to Kurt, and even that is a very slim, hesitant, weak link. Still, Kurt is glad he has this person to lean on in such a fluid space. The service is a sea of bodies and glares and tears, and this tall, stocky footballer is the only calm, albeit uncomfortable face, and Kurt is determined to turn him into a raft.

Kurt walks away from the service and says as he paces briskly by, "Take me away from here. Where's your car?"

XXX

Dave shows no sighs of protest, because Kurt's face is so stony and he is walking so rigidly that he might as well be an automaton. It frightens Dave more than anything ever has. For once, the bully is terrified of the victim.

But they aren't like that anymore, are they? They're acquaintances. They are more familiar with one another, although no one but them knows it.

And maybe that can be turned into a positive thing amidst all this negativity.

XXX

They drive in still silence to a pier overlooking a lake on the outskirts of Lima. It's a place where Dave's father used to take him fishing, and where he learned to skip stones.

He skips a few, and teaches Kurt how, and they quietly toss rocks into the water, listening to the splashes of skips and plunks of the sinking rocks, and the clank of the stones in their hands. They don't say much. Dave's dress slacks get a little dirty, but Kurt's white clothing somehow remains perfectly clean.

After an hour, Kurt gets cold and Dave sheds his suit jacket and Kurt slips it on. "Thank you." His voice is flat. There is nothing in it, nothing at all.

"No problem. I'm always too hot anyway," Dave says as an excuse, and he tries to give a smile.

Kurt doesn't return the smile. His face never changes, and his tears never come. But he walks a little closer to Dave on the way back to his car.

XXX

"I want to drop out of school. Every day I battle with myself for thirty minutes, ignoring my usual moisturizing routine and not even caring what I pick up to wear, because I am trying to talk myself into going because of the homework and the teachers and moving beyond this, but all I want to do is play sick, or better yet, never return."

This text from Kurt comes right as Dave is heading out to his car to drive to school in the morning after the funeral weekend. He bites his lip and stands still as he tries to think how to respond, what words he can use to reply with that will be encouraging and… and like what a friend would say.

"I get it. I would probably be the same way. School would seem like the worst place for me; I wouldn't want to talk to anyone or see anyone or have anyone ask me, 'What's wrong?' only to brush them off and say, 'Nothing. I'm fine,' when I'm not. So I don't blame you. But… how's this: for every day you come to school, I'll buy you coffee after school. Deal?"

The text is long coming, and Dave is in the school parking lot by the time it arrives. He smiles when he sees that it says, "Deal."

XXX

However, as it turns out, the championship coming up makes it difficult to go on any coffee outings with Kurt at all. He winds up being late to one, and canceling all the others. Practice keeps getting in the way.

When he shows up late for a second time, Kurt is standing to leave without buying anything. "It's fine. You don't have to do this anymore. I don't need your pity. And I don't need the incentive; I've decided to drop out. There's nothing for me here, and nothing for me in the world, either. Who was I kidding? I wouldn't have made it to NYADA, and with the state of mind I'm in, my grades were bound to take a nosedive directly into me repeating junior year. So it's fine, David. You don't need to pretend to be here for me behind the scenes of school anymore, because I won't be around to be there for."

And he leaves before Dave can get a word in or even process that Kurt used his name instead of his surname for the first time.

XXX

Dave knocks on Rachel Berry's door, and when one of her fathers answer, Dave mumbles that he's here for Kurt, that he's a friend of his, and he would like to speak to him.

They tell him that Kurt took all of his things and left. They were told he was living with his aunt in Cleveland.

Dave frowns. That's not right. That sounds like a lie, and Rachel's father at the door knows it. He shakes his head. "I hope someone finds him soon. Who knows that he will do."

Dave turns and runs back to his car.

He spends the night driving around Lima, searching for Kurt.

He doesn't find him, but when he returns home, there Kurt is, curled in fetal position on the cold cement of Dave's front stoop, Dave's parents' vehicles still gone, no one home to let Kurt in, and Kurt is blue and shivering in the night chill and Dave falls to his knees and picks Kurt up and brings him inside without thinking twice about it.

"You're living with me now, no arguments."

Kurt barely lifts his head, but Dave takes it as a nod.

XXX

Dave's mother comes home first, and she goes berserk.

She thinks homosexuality is an abomination and a sin and that Kurt is going to hell and that he has a disease that needs to be cured, and Dave yells and yells and yells at her in Kurt's defense, all the while Kurt is locked in the bathroom.

By the time Paul comes home, he finds his wife missing – even though she should be home from work by now – and his son in distress on the couch, and when he asks what's wrong, Dave replies, "My friend has nowhere to go, so I offered him our spare bedroom. But he's gay, and mom wants him out." He chokes on a cry and turns into his father. "Dad… I don't like how much she hates him for it. It's not his fault. He's always been that way and he can't help it. Why is being gay so bad? He just lost his father. He lost his mother when he was a kid. Why is she being so hard on him when his life is so bad already? And I used to make it so much worse…"

Paul doesn't entirely understand, but he nods and hugs his son and whispers soothing things, saying that Kurt can stay and that Mary will have to just live with her sister or mother for a while until Kurt can handle his own, because Paul has no problem with gays and can't turn down a grieving son, so he understands, and he wants to help.

XXX

But in the bathroom, all Kurt heard was Mrs. Karofsky saying so many foul things that it's driving him mad. He picks up a razor lying by the sink and examines it.

Pulling down his sleeve already littered with six tiny scars, he adds a nice, deep, fresh one and closes his eyes and lets the sharp, spicy throb of pain with every heartbeat wash over him as the warm fluid drips languidly down his arm, careful not to get it on his clothes (he could care less if they got ruined anymore; he just doesn't want to be obvious, to have anyone see what he's been doing to himself for the past few weeks), and relishes the tang of iron in his mouth as he chews on his tongue and rides out the pain until it's safe to clean up and get out of the bathroom.

Then, he plans to leave again, unless Mr. Karofsky is more forgiving than his wife.


	3. It's too hard to swallow

**A/N: This isn't over yet.**

* * *

During the day, while Paul and Dave are at work and school respectively, Kurt sinks into the oblivion of sleep and doesn't eat until the two Karofskys come home and make dinner. He picks at the food, but he manages to eat some of it, if only to satisfy the two men across the table at him, the ones who keeps sending him so many worried glances.

Sleeping is all Kurt wants to do anymore. Curling up onto his side and willing the tears to fade as he wraps himself in covers and shivers on the guest bed, waiting for the blankness and vagueness of dreamy sleep is all he enjoys anymore. Even talking to Dave hurts, because Dave has been looking at him more and more with these… these intense emotions in his eyes that convey nothing but _love, _and it's the polar opposite of how Dave used to look at him, and he doesn't like it, it freaks him out, and he isn't sure if he wants to give in to it or pull away.

He decides, in the end, that he's making it up in his head. There is no way Dave would be in love with someone as fucked up as Kurt. And there is no way Kurt wants a relationship as fucked up as having a romantic one with his former bully. It just wouldn't work out.

So he waves the idea aside every time it comes by him, and instead, he spends his time sleeping, reading, or answering texts with minimally worded responses.

XXX

Months fly by like minutes. Sleeping blurs the days. Kurt feels a little frail, a little thin. He doesn't come out of the guest bedroom often. When he does, it's to eat a little to keep him going. When he does, he only speaks politely to Mr. Karofsky, and doesn't say much at all to Dave.

XXX

"Kurt?" Dave knocks on the door. "Hey, um. I was… uh. I'm on my way to Prom. Did you… I mean, I got an extra ticket in case you still wanted to go, just to… just to let go and forget and dance for a while, I guess. I don't know. Do you have something to wear? – Wait, who am I kidding, of course you do. You're… Kurt. Anyway, did you want to?"

Kurt huffs a sarcastic laugh. "Are you asking me to be your date to Prom, David?"

Dave winces form the other side of the door at the bitter tone. "Um… not really, but I'll drive you. Everyone knows you live with me, and they don't seem to care. Santana and I have gotten real close, and she's my date, actually, and we've started this anti-bullying project at school together. I think she did it to be Prom Queen, but I think it's a good idea anyhow. So you'll be… I mean, it's safe. No one will be a dick to you. And a lot of them know you're kind of in a rough spot lately, so… yeah."

"I highly doubt it," Kurt sighs. "But I do have a kilt I have been saving for the proper occasion…"

"Great! See? You should go to Prom with me. –Er! Just… you should let me drive you… to Prom. Yeah," Dave fumbles, and Kurt frowns and blinks, standing up from near the drawn window and opening the door.

Dave stands there, dressed in his best, his hair somewhat tamed, and his cheeks are blazing pink. Kurt glances him over. "You look nice."

"…Thanks," Dave mumbles, glancing away.

"I'll go."

Dave's head snaps back. "What? Really?"

"Yes. Give me ten minutes."

"Awesome! I mean, of course. Yeah, I'll wait."

Kurt shuts the door with a gentle click, unlike his usual aggressive slam.

XXX

Seven minutes later, Kurt is calling Dave inside to help him with his cufflinks. "I can't seem to get them, and it's driving me crazy!"

Dave chuckles and moves to assist Kurt. But Kurt's sleeves fall down some as he raises and bends his arm, and Dave sees the start of the scars.

He jerks back as if electrocuted, and gapes like a fish. "Kurt…" and he hasn't called the other boy by his first name yet, but he is now, because how can he ignore self-harm? It's… it's there, and it shows that Kurt feels alone and in pain, and that… that just tears Dave up inside, gives him niggling feelings he never thought he could ever feel, like radioactive maggots, acidic and burning and squirming and eating him alive.

Kurt follows Dave's gaze and quickly straightens his arm and pushes down his sleeve. "Never mind, I've got it." And he clips the cufflinks into place. Dave realizes with an even more sinking feeling in his gut that Kurt could do his own cufflinks all along; he just made an excuse to get Dave closer, but it blew up in Kurt's face, and how he's retreating back into himself.

"No, let me," Dave argues in a whisper, stepping forward and carefully taking Kurt's other wrist in his hands, listing his arm and pinning the cufflink in place, clicking it together. "There. Do you need anything else?"

"No, I'm fine. Let's get on with it."

XXX

At Prom, Kurt is named Prom Queen.

And Dave is Prom King.

It seems everyone is acutely aware of the fact that Kurt lives at the Karofsky household, and they think it's one big, hilarious joke to imply that Kurt and Dave are dating – which they aren't – and they don't seem to realize how damaging their little prank is to everyone involved.

Kurt bolts from the gymnasium, tears pouring down his face. Dave stands stiffly, not sure if he can move, and gulps.

Mercedes and Rachel follow Kurt out into the hallway and try to be his friends again, despite him having ignored their calls and texts for months.

"Kurt, baby, it's just a stupid joke, they don't mean it, they don't all know about Burt or Blaine –"

"Please, Kurt, it's okay, we can drive you home if you want, or take you to one of our houses –"

"That's right, boy, we don't want to be at the dance anymore if those jerks are going to be that way –"

"And really, I don't want to sing for those assholes either, so it's fine, we can have a girls' night in like we used to –"

"No" Kurt retorts firmly, wiping away his tears and staring both girls down. "Sam has been looking at you all night, Mercedes, so you should stay and get a dance in with him. And Rachel, I know how important it is to you, so you should stay and sing. I can handle this. I know that to do."

XXX

He strides back into the gym with a determined look on his face. Figgins, utterly lost, crowns Kurt without much comment. Kurt, however, stands up at the mic and proudly says, "I've earned this, because all the rest of you have your heads up your own rears and don't know that I lost a friend and a father this year, and that I have nowhere to go but to David's because no one else will take me, not even the Hudsons, because Finn's mother is soo saddened by my face to be near me. So yeah, thank you, this is a real honor; it just proves that I am a Queen amongst filthy peasants, and none of you deserve me."

He paces slowly down from the stage and is greeted by a circle in the middle of a sea of bodies as everyone stands shock still, heads hung low if they voted for him, and bearing confused faces if they didn't. Finn is among the hanging heads, but out of guilt of his mother. Rachel and Mercedes look on with worried faces.

Dave is nudged to move. He walks down and stands in front of Kurt, but when he opens his mouth to speak, all he can say is, "_I'm sorry._"

And then he, too, leaves. Retreats right out of the gymnasium with his crown tossed down on the wooden floor and his shoulders hunched high around his ears.

Because everybody Kurt loves leaves him in the end.

So Kurt gives the most empty smile of his life, bites back the sting of tears rising to his eyes again, and he extends a hand toward Rachel, and bring the good girl she is, she takes it.

And she dances with Kurt, and Santana picks up Dave's crown and leaves the dance to find him.

XXX

When Santana finds Dave, her face is streaked with tears from not winning Prom Queen, for being afraid of herself for being picked on as violently as Kurt if she were discovered for being what she is, a lesbian, and for no one giving Dave any sympathy.

"Hey, Teddy," she whispers as she sits down beside him outside on the sidewalk curb around the back of the school, near the student parking lot. Her nickname is her way of calling him a bear cub, his little gay label.

He's crying. She's never seen him cry. She instantly bursts into tears again and wraps her thin arms around him, and he buries his face in her shoulder.

"Do you know the worst part, San?"

"What?" she murmurs as she pulls away to look at him.

"I would love to dance with him. I want nothing more. But I'm so scared. I wish you had been named Queen instead. It would have worked out so much better."

"Yeah," Santana sighs, "It would have."

XXX

At home, Kurt refuses to come out of his room for three days, and he doesn't eat at all.

But he doesn't cut himself again, either.

Dave knocks every day, but he never receives an answer. He begins to worry if Kurt is even in there at all, or if he opened the window, popped out the screen, and fled.

But he is in there, because Kurt comes out a few times to use the toilet, and once to shower.

XXX

"I don't know what to do," Paul sighs. "I want to get him help, like a therapist, but I don't think he would welcome it very much."

"He wouldn't. _I _wouldn't if I were him," Dave mutters in reply. He pokes at his steak and potatoes, but he isn't very hungry. It's been six days since Prom. "Um. I was thinking He and I could maybe go to another school next year? He was ahead in his credits, so he could still be considered a senior next year if he takes no study halls and takes only full-credit courses, and then does a little correspondence or summer school this summer. I could help him, even do some of his work for him so he isn't too stressed. And… maybe if we're away from McKinley, and start fresh, it would be a lot better. Don't you think?"

Paul nods. "That might be best. Thank you, David. You're always thinking of solutions."

"That's why I'm in calculus," Dave jokes, but he doesn't smile as he says it. Then he's pushing his chair away and cleaning up dinner, another one that Kurt hasn't attended, and another one Dave hasn't eaten much of, either.

XXX

"Kurt," Dave says one night, late into the night after school has ended for the year. It's perhaps two in the morning, when Kurt might even be asleep, and Paul is definitely sawing logs upstairs. Dave isn't sure if Kurt is awake, but he sleeps most of the day away, but Dave prays it's made him an insomniac, and he will be awake to hear this.

"Hey. I don't know if you're up, but… I just. I want to help you go back to school next year. A different school, one that isn't McKinley. My dad and I have it all set up. You only need two correspondence courses this summer that you can do through the mail, so I'm going to do those for you to get you in next year. I want to bring you out of this. It's just… I think it would be good for you to start fresh somewhere. And maybe go to college, one you want, one that's far away from here, one that your father would be proud of you getting into. …Are you hearing me at all?"

There is a long pause, one during which Dave sways foot to foot and feels a little stuffy in the early summer air, waiting for the automatic air conditioning to kick on again, and he nearly leaves. But then, faintly, he hears Kurt's voice.

"Yeah, I hear you. Hold on."

There are bedsprings, slow and muted, and then the shuffling of socked feet. Then the door is open and Kurt is there, a bit gaunt and a bit too pale, dark circles under his eyes, small line of pimples at his hairline and on his chin, but still unquestionably attractive. His hair is free of product and yet, somehow, he smells vaguely of soap.

"Hey," Dave says, and he can't help a slight smile as he looks down into Kurt's eyes in the dim light of the night, sight aided solely by the streetlights leaking in through the windows of other rooms and the downstairs.

"Why are you trying so hard for me?" Kurt puzzles.

"Because," Dave shrugs, trying to come up with something reasonable. "We're… friends."

"Friends," Kurt scoffs. "Didn't think I had any of those left, it's been so miserable. No one gets it. No one."

"I want to try to," Dave whispers. "And you know that I really am sorry for what I used to… I hate that version of me, you know. The version that hurt you, taunted you. I'm beyond that now."

"I know you are," Kurt says softly, glancing down. "You're a good guy at the end of the day, Dave. You have a good heart."

"It comes with being a Boy Scout," he jokes weakly, smiling a little.

"I could use a Boy Scout," Kurt sighs. He steps aside and walks back into the room. "C'mere," he yawns.

Dave follows, uncertain, but as he ventures into the room – and it smells a bit stuffy, like too heavily of water and skin, but not stinky like sweat or body odor, just… like someone hasn't left it in a while, which Kurt hasn't. It smells nothing like how the guest bedroom used to smell, which was all dust and potpourri, like no one lived in it or stayed very long. He hadn't thought about how much impact a change of smells could make, but it stirs something woeful in Dave's stomach.

"David," Kurt begins, and he sits down on the bed and pats beside him, and Dave takes a seat furthest from him. "Is there any truth to it?"

"To what?"

"You and me," Kurt clarifies flatly, his toneless words and nonchalant face more than a tad intimidating.

"Um…"

"Because I know what a little boy with a crush does: he shoves the girl he likes, tugs on her ponytail, makes fun of her because he doesn't know how to handle his feelings. And then, later, he tries to make it up to her, because he really does like her, so he does favors for her, like carrying her books or walking her to class or buying her lunch. And I've been thinking, is that you and me? And why would it be, if it were? I'm nothing worth crushing on, not the way I am right now." And he says it all so matter-of-factly that it makes Dave _angry. _

"That's bullshit. If anyone, you're the most crush-worthy person. Even now, you're still keeping it together, still surviving, still holding strong, when others, people like me, would have taken the easy way out by now."

"You mean suicide."

Dave cringes at the word, but nods. "Yes, I mean that. After all the things that have happened to you this past year, I would done that. I know I would have, been when I realized I was… was gay… I wanted to then, too. Because… well, you saw how my mom acted around you. Now imagine how she would be around her own _son_."

Kurt pulls a face that is the most emotion he's shown in a long while. "I can't imagine, actually. If she stormed out and has been gone for as long as I'm here, I can't see how she would be with you. She might abuse you."

"She might, yeah. I've thought about that," Dave murmurs. "But that's just the thing, Kurt. I would have completely lost it. But you're just… you're amazing. You're not doing well, I know, but you're _still here_. And you have chances to keep going."

"But I don't want to move on. I miss him so much, Dave. My dad was all I had, he – And Blaine, too. I was just getting to know him, be his friend, and then some freak accident happened, and I lost him, too, and now I just want to… to – But I can't do it! I've tried, with my wrists, but I can't hurt myself that far. I want to be with him again so much, though. Without my dad, or anyone else, I just… I feel like I'm dead, but still unfortunately alive," he says, and he breaks down and shatters, falling through the abyss until he hands on something warm and solid: David's chest.

"_Fuck_, Kurt," Dave says brokenly, his voice cracking and jagged. "Don't say that, please don't. So many people wouldn't be able to handle losing you, too. _I _wouldn't. You don't understand how much I care about you."

"How can you? Just earlier this school year you bullied me so much. Was it a kid with a crush? Or were you just mad at me because I was the way you couldn't be, out and proud? But I wouldn't have come out, Dave, if I could help it. I'm too obvious, though, because I have this stupid voice and I like clothes and taking care of my skin and hair and nails, and it all points to one thing, and I hate it, because I would rather be like you, the one no one would expect at first glance to be gay, because all you wear are polo shirts and jeans, and you play hockey and football, and all your friends know you've been with more than one girl."

Kurt confesses all this through his wild weeping, his fingers shaking as they cling to the front of Dave's shirt, to the mattress below him, and he squeezes his eyes shut so hard that he sees an array of black, grey, and white zigzag patterns overlaid with stars, and it makes him dizzy and he kind of hurts and he just wants to throw up, but not even the bile will rise to his mouth, there's so little in his aching gut.

"Kurt," Dave says again, his voice quiet and so unlike him, and yet so endearing and sweet that Kurt sinks into him more and sniffles, eyes relaxing to being merely closed, not shut tight. "God. It's so backward, I always though you would be the one helping me out with my lame self-acceptance troubles, but that's okay, because you need it more, and this is better, because then I don't feel so anxious to tell you that… that I love you."

Kurt tenses in Dave's grip, but he doesn't push the thicker boy away. Instead, he brings both arms around Dave's waist and nuzzles his face deeper into the hollow of Dave's chest under his sternum, and for a fleeting second, he feels so, so much closer to being whole, his heart picking up a beat or two to being one step nearer to feeling alive again.


	4. Did it wake you up from your sleeping?

Dave does Kurt's correspondence work for him, Kurt's credits are prepared, and together, they transfer to another school. The blue everywhere is such a stark contract to McKinley's red that it soothes Kurt's innards in a way a simple color wouldn't normally be able to do. But it's such a relief to be so far away from the people he's come to despise and resent that it's… it's really quite healing.

They don't associate much, only drive to school together, and so far, no one has noticed. They think Kurt is Dave's neighbor, someone he carpools out of convenience. No one questions it.

For the first semester, it works.

XXX

One evening, during the week of Valentine's day, Kurt – being less gaunt and baggy-eyed these days as he's growing back into himself and his self-confidence, even if he still mourns his father, and probably always will – asks Dave out on a date to Breadstix.

"Just one date," he prompts softly, "And we can see how comfortable you are with it. And we can talk, really get to know each other more than we already do. You'll have to buy, since you have a job and I don't, but I think we could have a really swell time."

"Who says 'swell' anymore?" Dave teases in good humor, and he smiles brightly. "But yeah, sure. That sounds great. I'd love that." And he feels the need to add, "Thanks, Kurt. I know I'm not… well, probably not what you were looking for in a guy, but I want to try."

"Right now, Dave, all your trying has been what led me to this decision, so keep that up, and we'll be on the right path."

XXX

It felt so good. Kurt was glowing, he could feel it. His heart was mending, his insides were brightening. Dave is really actually very funny when he wants to be, his humor dry and quick like Kurt's, and Kurt was rolling, grinning, bursting with laughter. They have similar tastes in many foods, as it turns out, and felt comfortable to steal off each other's plates (well, they used the small plates for the h'orderves and swapped some food, but the concept applies).

Kurt actually felt… happy. The happiest he's felt in a long time in comparison, anyhow, and it's wonderful. He could cry, it fills him with so much relief.

"You've helped me so much, you don't even know," Dave says softly. He reaches for Kurt's hand, and Kurt gives it to him. They hold hands across the table, and Dave's eyes are sparkling, and Kurt grins, because _he _did that. And Dave grins broader, because _he _is making Kurt smile, making Kurt look at him like this, like he wouldn't want to be anywhere else, and doesn't want this to end, but it will, so he will want to do it again soon, and that's _fantastic,_ because that is all Dave wants.

When it's time to go, the bill paid, Kurt stands, and Dave helps him into his jacket. Kurt's fingers brush Dave's thigh, purposely, and Dave smiles. Dave turns and walks alongside Kurt out of the restaurant. But along the way… they run into one of Dave's teammates.

"Hey, Karofsky. Looks like you had a nice date with your boyfriend, huh? Wait 'til the guys hear about this." And his smirk is nasty and dirty and disgusting, and Kurt instantly flushes a sick green, and Dave's face falls.

Dave bolts first. Kurt walks timidly around the cackling jock and, once outside, rushes after his friend.

Dave says nothing the entire ride home.

Kurt doesn't blame him. He feels just as petrified, because their secret is out, exposed before it had much of a chance to get started.

XXX

At school the following week, Dave's and Kurt's lockers are spray painted _faggot _with a doodled penis on each to make a sort of vulgar exclamation point.

Many of the students shun the pair of them. Many others simply don't want to get involved. And the rest? They make sure Kurt's and Dave's lives are hell.

They beat them up, sometimes. Sometimes, they just flood their Facebooks with hateful messages and comments. And the teachers turn the other cheek, because they are just as bad, and they don't want their school to get a poor reputation by reporting all the abuse.

Dave stops going to school first. His Facebook friends from McKinley de-friend him as fast as this school's kids, and he confesses to Kurt that this is really the end, they can't go back, and they can't afford a place like Dalton, and there is nowhere left to go.

XXX

"What am I going to do? I hate it. I hate it. My mother sees my Facebook, so she knows. I know she knows. She will never come back, now, even if you moved out later to go to college or something. And my dad, he's so mad. He's ready to sue the school, but he's in too deep, I've dragged him into this. And you… I'm so sorry. This is the last thing you needed, Kurt. I'm sorry."

"What are you saying, Dave? This is _my _fault. I goaded you into a date. It's my fault we were seen. I should have been more careful. But they would have figured it out eventually, at least that I live with you and I'm not related to you. Then they would have assumed their own ideas, because I'm sure they suspected me all along, and by association, they would have eventually gotten to you. There's nothing we could have done about that. We need to fight this, Dave. We need to –"

"I can't, Kurt, I can't. I can't do this. I told you, I'm not – I'm not cut out for this. I can't do it. They all hate me. They've hurt you because of me. This is the worst, the actual worst. I can't… I'm sorry, but I'm done. I need to do something to end this, to help you and my dad, to make it up to my mom…"

"Dave. David, please. Please, please don't tell me you're considering it. You can't do that, you –"

They're both babbling, crying messes. Kurt is lost. He doesn't know what to do, how to fix this. They aren't in school, but they were only a few months away from graduating, and they are so close, if they could just get through this and come out on top, disprove them all –

"No. It's not gonna work. I can see it on your face, Kurt. You want to go back, finish, get out of here. But I c… I can't… I won't do it, it's… it's over, I can't be anybody. I-I can't sing or write music or anything like you can. I won't go anywhere, last anywhere. Even if I leave Ohio entirely, I can't run from the fact that all I'm good at is math."

"Yes, you can. You can do _something, _David! We just need to think this through, we just have to –"

"I can't, Kurt! Don't you see? Don't you _get _it? I'm not as strong as you! I'm not made to handle this! Fuck… _Fuck_! My _mom_'s calling!" he bellows, shakily fumbling to retrieve his phone form his pocket and throw it against the wall, the backing popping off, battery jarred, as it slides open and lands, abused, shut off, on the floor.

Dave turns and leaves the guest bedroom, retreating to his attic room. He slams the door shut and locks it, and kurt stumbles up the stairs, dazed in his wobbling, sobbing state, and banging on the door with his fists until his knuckles are raw and he has to use the palms of his hands until they sting and burn into numbness.

"Dave! Dave! David! _David Karofsky_!" he shrieks until his voice is hoarse.

He hears things. Dave dragging a chair, Dave removing his belt on his jeans.

Panic trickles down form Kurt's head to his heart like the chilled whites of a raw egg being cracked over his skull. He runs and bashes the door with his shoulder, but that only succeeds in dislocating it, and sending Kurt to the floor, howling in pain.

Struggling through tears, Kurt stands and jump-kicks at the door, just off to the side of the lock.

The door springs free.

"_David_!" he cries as he barrels into the bedroom, limp, useless arm at his side, tingling from disconnection. He whirls around and sees the walk-in closet.

Dave is hanging from the beam that rung across the ceiling. Hanging from his belt, a kicked chair beneath him. His face is eerily serene.

"No, no, no, no, no!" He screams, and in seconds, he's reaching up with his good hand, sobbing without realizing it, and fumbling to detach the belt.

Dave thuds to the floor and the belt slips off the beam and clanks on the wood beside his boyfriend's body, lying as heavy and guilty as a dead snake that choked on the animal it killed.

Kurt cradles Dave in his lap and rocks back and forth, mumbling the same mantra over and over, waiting for Dave's eyes to open, trembling too much to land a check for Dave's pulse, and too afraid of what he will find if he does put his fingers where Dave's pulse in his neck should be.

How did he get driven to this, even when he has Kurt?

Kurt has never felt so useless.

XXX

He calls Paul after ten minutes, and an ambulance promptly afterward.

He doesn't want to be here when either arrive, but he also doesn't want to leave Dave.

In the end, Kurt decides that if Dave lives, so shall he. But if Dave is dead, too, then Kurt will finally join all the people he's lost these past two years.


	5. That makes the fight a blur

**A/N: Chapter titles are song lyrics from Saosin's 'Sleepers.'**

* * *

Paul is so distraught that Kurt can't give him a straight answer. He simply sits, numb, paralyzed, glum, eyes downcast, arm aching to be relocated in his shoulder, and his heart tied up in knots, and his stomach churning so violently that Kurt doesn't know if he's going to vomit or not.

He does, at the hospital, when he sees the bruises on Dave's throat as he's wheeled in the emergency room. He runs to a nearby trashcan and loses everything that was remotely in there, and all his bile to spare. His teeth feel fuzzy, dirty, and his mouth tastes worse than sewage.

Kurt sits down in the waiting room and says nothing. Paul is a mess. He can't keep it together; he's red and teary and sniffling and rubbing his face and hiccupping, muttering, "My baby boy, my baby boy," over and over, and his wife is nowhere in sight, even though Kurt knows they hospital contacted her.

The result comes quickly.

"His neck was broken. He was dead when he hit the floor," the doctor informs sadly, slowly, clearly upset. The doctor is a tender soul, more than most; he seems to be really thrown by teen suicide. And Kurt notices that the doctor is swearing a small rainbow band under his coat, around his wrist. He supports gays. He knows why this happened, and he's just as disturbed.

Paul says nothing. He merely nods and with a small motion to Kurt, they enter Dave's ward, and say their goodbyes.

Kurt's will be more permanent than Mr. Karofsky's, although the middle-aged man doesn't know it.

XXX

Kurt's goodbye to Dave is nothing more than a press of lips to his cool forehead. And then he leaves the ward.

XXX

At first, things move slowly.

It takes Paul a while to make the necessary arrangements for Dave's funeral and the like. Mary is at the service, and she comes up to Kurt and blames him. She says that he's why her son went gay, and it's his fault that Dave killed himself and ran into trouble with the kids at school, and she keeps going, all through service, saying it's the entire blame is on him, and she's shrieking and crying, mascara running, and it takes Paul and a few other people to tear her away from Kurt and give Kurt the freedom to run.

And he does run. He runs far, far away from Dave's grave and the foreboding clouds in the sky and the rage of Mary Karofsky and the sorrow of Paul Karofsky and all those glaring faces, all those eyes boring into his skull.

XXX

He doesn't return to the Karofsky abode. It feels too much like home, and it scares him. It feels too empty without Dave there.

XXX

Kurt sleeps in a cozy spot in the woods. The spring air chills him to the bone, rattles his insides, and he feels like petrified wood, stony and heavy and half-hollowed out and dead.

He thinks of five different ways to kill himself: drowning, falling, cutting, shooting, hanging.

It would be poetic to go out the same way David did. But he wouldn't do it right. And he doesn't know where he would get a gun. A blade would be easier to come by or steal, but even then, he doesn't want to. Too messy. Falling is messy, too, and most of the places in Lima aren't high enough to kill him for sure.

Drowning it is, then. It will be easy, like falling asleep. It will be full of panic at first, he knows, but then it will be so calm and peaceful and perfect.

XXX

Kurt wonders if he can make it through, if he can pull himself together enough not to immediately jump right into death to join his father and Dave and Blaine in whatever afterlife exists. He wonders if there is a collective one, where all four – five, counting his mother – of them could be in peace. Somewhere that would suit all of them, somewhere Kurt could contentedly stay forever, a place where his loved ones were, and if it's possible to have that.

If it is, he wants it more than anything, at this point. He can't stand the thought of being without any of them, because even with the time he had following his mother's death, it still doesn't sit right with him, and Kurt is positive this isn't any different. It's worse, in fact; he has so many people waiting for him, and no one left here who matters, not really.

Still, as he stands at the pier's edge at the same lake Dave took him to when they skipped stones, he has a few doubts. His is tied night and tight to the piece of rope he took out of the Karofskys' shed, and it's secured nicely to the cinder clock he stole from a construction site up the road, near the middle school. He's ready. He has the block in hand, he can feel the cool air on his neck, at his hands, on his face; and it's all set. All he has to do is take the dive, throw himself out into the deep end in the center of the lake.

But he wonders if he shouldn't. For a moment, he mulls it over. Could he carry on? Would any good come of it?

The answer is almost instant: no. No, that won't do at all.

As Kurt shuffles foot to foot and nears the edge, staring down into the bluish-green lakewater, he reflects on the fact that it's been over a year since that day in the locker rooms that changed everything. That made him see Dave a little differently, that opened the can of worms to lead him to going to Dave for support, and comfort, and friendship, when no one else seemed like a reliable option.

Dave has been there for him, he realizes, even when he was pushing Dave away. And the few times he thought Dave didn't care, like with the promise of coffee, it was because he couldn't help it, because he wanted to stay on the team and go to the championship – which they won, of course, something about zombies lending them the upper hand in the end – and not because he didn't care. And their date was the best time Kurt had had in a long, long while.

"I love you, too," he murmurs out loud, to the wind, to the sky, to the lake, to David.

And then, closing his eyes, he throws the block, and himself, off the pier.

XXX

As the water flows in around his clothes and he sinks down and down and down, Kurt opens his eyes. He holds his breath at first, watching, just enjoying the sunlight through the water's surface so high above him. The water has hot and cold spots, as a lake does, where the sun penetrates and doesn't, and where the current steals the heat away.

His cement block reaches bottom, and then he bobs a bit on the rope, floating in the space between life and death. There is a wonderland here, something like outer space, the stars, the universe, all shrunken and condensed into this lakewater. He can see the glimmer of silver scales, the green of algae and moss, the black and blue of the water's shadows. In Kurt's blurred vision, it might as well be galaxies and planets.

Kurt hiccups, losing air in a burst of bubbles, and his nostrils flare and his eyes bulge for a moment, panic rising in his chest. His brain screaming, 'Get to the surface! Get to the surface! Lungs need air, lungs need air! Warning! Warning! Drowning! Drowning! Help!' but he wills it away as he opens his mouth, and slowly, his chest tightens and the water rushes in as he sucks it into his throat, and he can feel himself softening into the background, becoming one with the water, his brain shutting off in segments, like power in a city during an outage.

It will all be over soon, and then he can be with all the people he loves and cares about again. It's only a matter of waiting, now…

XXX

They find the body of a seventeen- to eighteen-year-old male while fishing on a boat on the lake. They pull him on board, as peaceful as someone sleeping, but his lips are blue and his eyes are purple around his closed lids, and he is pasty white and stiff all over with rigor mortis, and his hair is littered with fish eggs.

They call it into the police, and he's identified by a group of teary-eyed, sick-stomached students from McKinley high's Glee club.

XXX

Meanwhile, Kurt has never felt more at home.

* * *

**A/N: And thus concludes this tale.**

**I wrote this for LunarGuardian27 by request because he is dying of spinal cancer. He doesn't have long left to live. He will be slowly paralyzed, until, finally, he will go brain-dead and be barely alive, like the living dead, and it is the worst fate I can think of, and he asked for the saddest Dave/Kurt I could think of, and so I tried, I did, and I hope it worked, and if not, I will try again, because I can't let him down.  
**

**He wanted me to tell you, so that you understand why I wrote this, and as a means to honor him.  
**


End file.
